Chapter 63 (1/2)

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Ban Yeo Ryung seemed to have been confused with my recent behavior since she was appropriately spacing the words in her text. She might be feeling a distance from me. Ban Yeo Ryung was anxious about even the minor change in my mood.

This brilliant girl still remembered the change I made when we were freshmen in middle school. She was afraid if I was trying to get away from her like that again.

As I read her text out loud, a weak thought came across my head out of the blue.

I closed my flip phone and placed it on my chest as if holding it for prayer. A few moments had passed since I lied like that on my bed.

I wanted to say, ‘promise me,’ to Ban Yeo Ryung and the four boys. ‘Would you promise me you will never turn back and leave me?’ It was what I wanted to ask them. Ever since I realized everything was a novel, I had these concerns that hardly diminished from my head.

Would they leave me once the novel was over? If they had broken the spell, would they leave my side after a few blinks? These concerns would never leave my head.

That was because they seemed like they were people from a completely different world, and I always had a hard time seeing the possibility of being friends with them.

I grabbed my phone tightly then threw it somewhere at the bedside. Then I laid myself on the bed, pulling up the blanket nervously over my face. Still, I could not sleep.

Although I was suffering from unbearable anxiety, I could not send such a text to them. That was because my inferiority complex provoked this matter of insecurity within me.

I should just go to sleep. I shut my eyes tight out of melancholy. It was a day where I enjoyed eating delicious food and got to meet Yeo Dan oppa as well; however, it was still a gloomy day.

I had a dream about Yi Ruda. She boasted about her angel-like blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and her slender body like in our real life.

What she was wearing was a white toga from the Roman Empire, so she looked genderless.

Surrounded by pitch darkness, she was walking straight along a bright path that looked like a line, which was the only path existing for her. I sat down from a distance, staring at her moves and fell into thought.

Was there really a fate given to a person? Was it so firmly fixed and well-organized in a well-written novel that nothing could change it?

Then what were we struggling to change? If our efforts would all be in vain, would it be a blessing or a curse?

I thought that things would be graspable, but no matter how hard I tried, that thing would never belong to me… The one that came across my mind at the end was Yoo Chun Young’s face.

That summer, the image of Yoo Chun Young and I sitting alongside under the tree and staring at the schoolyard overlapped the scene wherein Yi Ruda was walking along the path.

Oh, dreams were such strange things. In real life, I tried so hard to forget about it, and I was not even smart enough to remember all the details of that scenery; however, the image I recalled from my dream was more specific than reality.

I saw Yoo Chun Young’s exhausted face that day. His lip was moving at the same speed, bringing out the same words as he did that day.

“It’s that… you seemed to have no interest in me.”

He then remained silent for a moment. At that time, I was just staring at him and was not aware of what he was saying. Not only now but also during that time, he truly had something that would draw people’s eyes to him.

I felt the clear line from his forehead around my finger; I turned my head to see what it was and found Yoo Chun Young’s hand right next to mine.

A short distance from the length of my knuckle. If I stretch out my finger further, it would really reach his finger.

Right next to my pinky, there was Yoo Chun Young’s. His finger was long and pale.

“That’s why I like you.”